Welcome to DBSTalk

Welcome to DBSTalk. Our community covers all aspects of video delivery solutions including: Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), Cable Television, and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). We also have forums to discuss popular television programs, home theater equipment, and internet streaming service providers. Members of our community include experts who can help you solve technical problems, industry professionals, company representatives, and novices who are here to learn.

Like most online communities you must register to view or post in our community. Sign-up is a free and simple process that requires minimal information. Be a part of our community by signing in or creating an account. The Digital Bit Stream starts here!

Looks like the consumer C-Band business will be dead and gone by the end of this year. After hearing from several retailers about rumors that Motorola would cease its authorization stream, we started making inquires. No response from Motorola but Mike Monfort of National Programming Service (NPS) confirms that the demise is likely.

"We had a conference call in late December when Motorola talked about discontinuing the authorization stream on April 15th," Monfort says. After some protests and concerted lobbying, the giant manufacturer boosted prices by 20%, agreed to continue service until the end of the year and said they will then decide the future.

Motorola will almost certainly discontinue the service, Monfort says, so his National Programming Service (NPS) has ceased selling annual subscriptions. That's bad news for many retailers and C-Band's current 22,606 subscribers. "The people who are left love their C-Band," Monfort says. But Motorola apparently finds the business inconvenient ... and so an era is coming to an end.

There may be more to the story. Other places have stated that NPS may simply be looking to get out of the C-Band business, as their competitors have stated there isn't an issue with staying in the C-Band business.

There seems to be some misinformation going on that Motorola will be ending c band support as of the end of the year. This is not true. NPS is getting out of selling c band subscriptions and lieing to convert people over to Dish Network.

I called NPS twice today and they told me these lie's and wanted me to convert. I called SRL and they told me this is not true. I then called Skyvision and had a nice conversation with Mike Kohl about this. Mike's exact words were "hogwash" NPS has made a deal with the devil and is trying to sell there remaining customers to Charlie.

Mike also said that he will be talking about this whole issue on Friday night on Access America. He went into other details but I'll let him tell everything this Friday.

The bottom line is if your not with SRL or Skyvision renew your subscriptions with them as soon as your subs with NPS run out. I will be doing this.

Do not bite on NPS's offers to transition you to dish network. They are pulling a Superstar, Netlink, Turnervision.

Mike Mountford is blowing smoke in his letter. Motorola is not ending support for c band at year end. I spoke with Mike Kohl yesterday at Skyvision, Both Skyvision and SRL have been in contact with Motorola and this is false information NPS is selling.

NPS got a 20% increase in there fee's they pay to Motorola in January (For ACC tier bit access I would guess) NPS is also in a no contract situation with A&E networks so those channels are on the line.

The deal with the devil (as Mike Kohl call's it) has been sealed with Charlie Ergen of Dish Network. NPS gets a Bounty from Charlie for every C band subscriber he turns over to them. NPS is getting out of the c band business at year end and closing it's doors.

Motorola is not happy with the lies NPS is spreading for there own benefit. Nps may be facing legal action for this.

If I would have to sum it up, NPS contact from Mr Mountford you got adding what I know. NPS contract ran out Jan 1st for tier bit access. They had till April 15 to pay the increases and renew. They refused to pay the 20% increase and got Motorola to extend it till Dec 31st for a smaller fee. Probably the 7% increase they raised programming in February. They figured the only way to win is to sell there customer base to Charlie Ergen getting a finders fee for each fool who converts.

Skyvision and SRL are under different contracts with Motorola , HITS (Comcast) and the programmers. They are not effected by anything NPS does with Motorola.

The bad part about this is there hard sell to Dishnet and lies they offer as far as the skys are going dark are not good business decisions for c band consumers.

You take pictures like my mom....subject off centered and cropped at the edges. She'll take pictures of landmark buildings and she'll cut the top off of the roof or steeple or whatever, but she'll get plenty of ground below the base of the building. Or vice versa. Cut the bottom off, but get plenty of empty sky.

You take pictures like my mom....subject off centered and cropped at the edges. She'll take pictures of landmark buildings and she'll cut the top off of the roof or steeple or whatever, but she'll get plenty of ground below the base of the building. Or vice versa. Cut the bottom off, but get plenty of empty sky.

Lighten up. The picture was taken for a computer wallpaper. Having the sky and trees was intentional.

My old 10' Unimesh Perf Minnesota dish. I used it for both C and KU band from about 1989 to 1996, when I moved to Florida. The last time I drove by the house, last September it was still there. It's a bit up in the air which made for interesting times clearing snow off the dish. This was my first installation when I got into the satelllite business.

So is there anything left on C-Band that isn't encrypted? Can you still order channels?

I always thought CB was better, you were getting the uncompressed signals directly from the network, you could get almost every channel available, and you didn't have to worry about whether or not your provider was going to carry the channel, no "middle man".

With all of these carriage disagreements lately, it would be kind of nice if we could go back to those days.

They are giving these dishes away down here in San Antone. Are they still usefull for C band FTA?

Heck yeah... All 6 major networks, PBS HD, Nasa, lots of Sports feeds, News channels... there is a lot to watch. Most of it in HD if you have the right receiver. When something important happens, like the earthquake in Haiti, it was on FTA live before anywhere. If you can swing the price of a receiver, grab one of those free dishes. I have a 6'er and a 10'er.

Not to:beatdeadhorse: but there is a follow-up editorial by Evie Haskell in today's SkyReport.

SkyBOX: A C-Band Saga

by Evie Haskell -- 2/8/2010

Here's a story about a once-great business, the inexorable march of technology and the arrogance ... to say nothing of the destructive power ... of monopolies.

The first hints of serious disease trickled into my mailbox early last week. We hear, they said, that the C-Band business is going out of business .... We hear that Motorola will kill it by ceasing to support of C-Band authorizations.

Now Motorola is, of course, the ONLY support for C-Band authorizations. It wound up with that monopoly via its take over of General Instruments, the former "VideoCypher" C-Band monopoly, in 1999. It has profited handsomely from the C-Band business which, at its pre-Motorola peak, numbered nearly 2.4 million subscribers.

But, as in many things Motorola, the company has given this business only token support, being content to milk the revenue stream from far flung subscribers as the newer little dish services soaked up subscribers in more urban/suburban settings. Today the big dish has fewer than 23,000 subscribers ... but the revenues still come in. Would Motorola cut that off?

I called Motorola PR honcho Jennifer Erickson. I left a message. I wrote an email. I got no response so I called a few more times and ... bingo! ... Ms. Erickson answered her phone. I made my query and she said, in essence, "What's C-Band?" She said she would check the rumors out. She said she would call me back.

That call never came. So I tried Mike Mountford at NPS. And he gave me the scoop: Yes, Motorola is likely to discontinue its support of C-Band authorizations at the end of this year. There's a glimmer of hope, but Mountford's NPS has stopped selling annual subscriptions.

So I wrote a story on that (along the way completely mangling the spelling of Mr. Mountford's last name ... urgh! my apologies.) And I got a lot of response to that story. And guess what? Some of that response came from programmers who had been planning new C-Band feeds. Some of it came from folks who service C-Band equipment. One message admonished me to tell "both sides of the story." (And if the author of that email would tell me what this story is missing, I most certainly will.) But none of it ... nothing ... nada ... came from Motorola.

So we're talking about people's lives, and business plans, and 22,606 households who just love those big dishes. But we're also talking about Motorola which is, apparently, too big to be bothered.